Explore every episode of the podcast The Glossy Beauty Podcast

In this special episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, we are taking you directly to the main stage of Glossy's annual Beauty & Wellness Summit for a conversation between POV Beauty founder Mikayla Nogueira, POV Beauty CEO and co-founder Ani Hadjinian, and Glossy editor-in-chief Jill Manoff.  The trio dug into the tentpole strategy behind POV Beauty, which launched in 2025 and entered every Sephora store in the U.S. and Canada earlier this year. The brand sells skin prep and complexion products with big ambitions to expand into new categories.  Built off Nogueira’s experience, which includes a start in special effects makeup, years in retail sales at Ulta Beauty and a prolific career on TikTok as a beauty creator, the brand leverages its online community in several ways.  “I always love to just ask my community, ‘What are you looking for? What are you craving in the beauty world? What can we create?,'" Nogueira said during the live fireside chat. “Something I'm trying to balance as a brand founder is creating a brand [that] product-wise is authentic to the way I do makeup and products that I would actually use. … But also creating products that the community is seeking.”  Nogueira launched and built the brand alongside co-founder and CEO Ani Hadjinian, whose CV includes Bobbi Brown, Estée Lauder, Tom Ford Beauty and Augustinus Bader. Together, Nogueira and Hadjinian walked the audience through its brand playbook.

One of the biggest beauty industry headlines over the past few weeks has surrounded an unexpected lawsuit filed by indie makeup darling Patrick Ta Beauty over which retailers can, and cannot, sell its products.  Last month, Patrick Ta Beauty filed a lawsuit against CVS and Canadian distributor Akstrom for the "unauthorized" sale of its cosmetics in CVS’ newly-launched off-price section called "fresh beauty finds." The lawsuit highlights ongoing friction between beauty brands and product diversion into the gray market, best described as the trade of authentic goods through unintended or unauthorized channels.  It comes during a time when off-price is becoming a dominant retail channel for beauty and wellness. Not only do consumers crave a deal, but the quick sale of products to off-price stores can have meaningful financial benefits for beauty brands in need of cash infusion.  Off-price leader TJX — which operates TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods — grew its revenue by 3.95% in 2025 to reach net sales of $56 billion. While CVS generated $400 billion in revenue during fiscal 2025, the brick-and-mortar leader is not immune to industry challenges facing pharmacy retail. Its new "fresh beauty finds" section is a strategic way to boost revenue through competitive categories.  CVS and Patrick Ta Beauty declined to comment on the lawsuit, and Akstrom did not reply to Glossy’s request for comment.  There’s much we don't know about Patrick Ta Beauty's lawsuit, including how Akstrom obtained the Patrick Ta Beauty products, how CVS will proceed with its intended sales and how this may impact beauty’s growing gray market. While early, the lawsuit comes with many valuable lessons that demand analysis.  In today’s episode, Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack is joined by Julie Zerbo, lawyer, legal analyst and founder of The Fashion Law, where she unpacks the legal cases impacting the fashion and beauty industries. Also on today’s episode is Ian Ginsberg, president of iconic Greenwich Village apothecary C.O. Bigelow Chemists and distribution arm Bigelow Trading, which encompasses its private beauty line and a USA wholesale distribution arm that imports brands like Marvis toothpaste for sale across domestic retailers. 

As the wellness category swells in size, many insiders are wondering the same question: What should be called ‘wellness’ in 2026? In today’s special crossover episode with Glossy’s sister publication Modern Retail, West Coast correspondent Lexy Lebsack joins Modern Retail senior editor Gabi Barkho and Rachel Hirsch, founder and managing partner at Wellness Growth Ventures, to discuss the products and categories that should, and shouldn’t, be considered wellness in 2026. The trio walks through a variety of categories, from better-for-you food and protein sodas to skin care, oral care, sleep aids and tools for optimized breathing, among others. As previously reported by Glossy, wellness consumers are overwhelmed with the sheer size of the assortment available today, which has bred a growing strategy toward evocative launches and campaigns that "stop the scroll." Think: soda-flavored toothpaste and wellness brands turning into entertainment companies to sell supplements, fiber gummies and beauty peptides. Today’s conversation is rooted in the guests' diverse specialties: Barkho covers food, beverage and wellness for Modern Retail; Lebsack reports on beauty and wellness for Glossy; and Hirsch’s seed fund is dedicated to advancing the wellness sector through investments in brands like Cure Hydration, BelliWelli, Liquid Death, Flaus and Tia. Don’t forget to follow the Modern Retail Podcast for more topics like this.

In a lot of ways, supplement company Cymbiotika has perfected the form factor and distribution of modern-day vitamins.  The San Diego-based company launched in 2018 and quickly found its footing in the marketplace with single-serving pouches of Liposomal supplements. So far, the company has sold more than 200 million individual packets and grown its revenue 3,000% over the past 3 years to reach $150 million in annual revenue, according to the company.  Cymbiotika sells across mass, online and grocery retail in boxes and individual pouches at point of sale. It entered Target in 2025, Ulta Beauty in March, and Walmart last week. Now, the brand is making a big bet on a new category by launching its first beauty supplement for hair, skin, and nails.  Called Liposomal Beauty Peptide Complex, the launch is being promoted with the brand's biggest campaign to date. "The investment was a big one in the sense that we've never really done anything on this level,” said Cymbiotika co-founder Durana Elmi. “I think you're starting to see a shift in the consumer's approach toward beauty, and being there in the forefront of that today is something we're really, really proud of.”  The new product will be sold at retailers like Ulta Beauty, Walmart and Target. Elmi joined Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack to walk through the brand’s strategy to win in the notoriously competitive world of beauty supplements. This includes the brand’s biggest campaign to date, starring model Amelia Gray and made with OBB Media, the content company owned by Rhode co-founder Michael D. Ratner. 

Ritual founder and CEO Kat Schneider knows that winning the female supplement consumer requires taking big bets and big swings.  “When I started the company and I was fundraising. … I was told pregnancy was ‘niche’, postpartum was ‘niche’, perimenopause was ‘niche,’” Schneider told Glossy. “This was a decade plus ago. Now, women's health has never been hotter.” Ritual launched direct-to-consumer in 2016 with a transparent supply chain and science-backed formulations. Now, it has the best-selling prenatal supplement on the U.S. market, according to the brand, and is sold across Target, Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Whole Food and more retailers.  Still, when the company entered the perimenopause space last month, it still felt like the Wild West. “There's almost no market sizing [into subcategories of women’s health],” Schneider said. “You have to have a lot of conviction when you're going into something earlier, ahead of the time that people see it.” Perimenopause, the hormonal precursor to menopause that can last a decade, has received new attention in the past few years as women’s health takes a front seat in popular culture. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack sits down with Schneider to walk through exactly what it took to launch into the burgeoning space, which is also the brand's first new category launch in six years. Its big swing includes a dedicated foundation supplement called Perimenopause Health, plus a foray into creatine, an essential nutrient for perimenopausal women, with the launch of its new Creatine Greens powder drink mix. Then there is the multi-million-dollar marketing budget that includes hiring “Nobody Wants This” actress Jackie Thon for a campaign and TV spot created with full-service media agency Giant Spoon.

What if new product development didn’t have to be so complicated and expensive?  NIOD, the second brand from Estée Lauder-owned Deciem, entered Sephora in August with an NPD tactic borrowed from tech companies like Apple. “NIOD is all about high science and high tech, and then bringing it to the consumer in as simple of a way as possible,” Amy Bi, vp of global brand at Deceim, told Glossy. “It's very similar to an iPhone. As technology within skin care evolves, as research evolves, we simply upgrade our products.”  For example, NIOD’s best-selling Copper Amino Isolate 3 1:1 (CAIS) serum is on its third iteration, which is noted in the name as "3." Similar to an iPhone, which is on its 18th iteration, NIOD can constantly innovate without having to reinvent the wheel.  “We're just upgrading them similar to how your iOS goes through a software upgrade overnight and then a bug is fixed or something has been simplified for you,” Bi said. “It's the exact same approach.” She told Glossy that some consumers stay well-informed about the latest version, which is messaged across traditional marketing channels like email and social media. But most consumers simply appreciate that the brand is always optimizing its formulas. Others never even catch on to the process.  NIOD, pronounced nee-odd, launched in 2015 as the second brand from Deciem, the beauty incubator behind The Ordinary. Deciem was purchased by Estée Lauder Companies in 2017 for a total investment of $1.7 billion.  As previously reported by Glossy, NIOD is positioned as a science-meets-longevity skin-care brand and serves a burgeoning cohort of biohacking wellness enthusiasts. The brand was early to the copper peptide skin-care trend that’s growing today and, like The Ordinary, prices the entire line competitively. NIOD’s products range from $26-$93.  Bi has been with Deciem for five years. Her CV includes nearly seven years at Nike, her last role being global brand director of women’s lifestyle.  NIOD still launches new products; its cadence is simply slower.  “We're not constantly on this new product launch cycle that so much of the industry is on,” Bi said. “ We're actually just focused on maintaining our key SKUs, our key products, and then upgrading them when we see that there's exciting technology that serves the same benefit, or there's a way that we can improve the texture, the efficacy, anything to do with the product itself.” Of course, that doesn’t mean every consumer loves saying goodbye to older versions, so the company has mastered a slow process of phasing out older iterations, similar to how Apple slowly discontinues older iPhone models.  Bi sat down with Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack to walk through the benefits, the challenges, and advantages of an iterative approach to new product development. 

Over the past week, the internet has been ablaze discussing the beauty industry’s biggest controversy of the year. From social media to global news outlets, everyone is talking about something that’s been dubbed "eye patch gate." Around September 17, several beauty brands, including Fenty Beauty, Glow Recipe and Huda Beauty, began to tease the release of products that appeared to be almost identical. A small plastic jar that twisted to reveal a freshly sliced hydrogel eye mask. What was meant to be a first-of-its-kind innovation from each of the brands ended up looking more like an April Fools' joke.  As a response, Fenty Beauty and Glow Recipe meme'd themselves before continuing their launches, while Huda Beauty announced it was pulling the product from production. Turns out, the products all came from the same K-beauty manufacturer named Samhwa. “It really comes down to a question around exclusivity, meaning these brands likely received some degree of the [same] innovation in a very similar capacity [but have no exclusivity on the innovation],” Jaimee Holmes, veteran beauty exec-turned-brand founder, told Glossy. “[When] I was leading merchandising at Goop [from 2019-2023], I was really seeing this across every single category. So many brands presented quite literally the same product from the same suppliers, same presentations, but sometimes there might be a price difference of up to $100 between two [of them].”  Holmes knows a thing or two about innovation. She got her start at Sephora, followed by Benefit Cosmetics, then Too Faced, where she was an integral part of bringing one of the top-selling mascaras of all time, Better than Sex, to market in 2013. She’s also held executive roles at Kendo Brands, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, Memebox and L’Oréal-backed Timeline Longevity.  At Goop, Holmes “would get samples from the same suppliers sent to my doorstep [on behalf of different brands],” she said. “It gave me a lot of pause. … Ultimately, it's what led me to step away and create something of my own called Fel Beauty.”  Fel Beauty (pronounced like "feel") launched in December of 2025 at Sephora and DTC with just one product. Called Kissylips, the $22 lip-and-cheek hybrid launched in eight universal shades and has since sold out several times. The line is made in Canada with a custom formula and custom packaging, which was far from easy. “This was a two-year development cycle to create [the product],” Holmes said. “It was 56 trials, which means we failed about 55 times before we succeeded to create this at all. And we didn't give up.”  Fel Beauty has taken on minimal funding from angel investors. With a lean team of five – including secret weapon Erik Frey, a packaging design expert who’s made products for Rhode, Tatcha and MPH – Fel Beauty has since added an overnight lip mask and is soon expanding into other categories. Certain shades, like CutiePie, have sold out four times at Sephora. “We've been beating our plan as a brand by over 200%,” Holmes said. “The last time we tracked and pulled this number, it was around 35,000 [units sold].”  Holmes sat down with Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack to unpack the innovation struggles in the industry, share lessons from her career, and spill the secret sauce behind 10-month-old Fel Beauty’s quick success. 

What does it take to thrive within the notoriously competitive world of Sephora?  In many ways, Ilia Beauty is a case study in success in America’s biggest specialty beauty retailer. The brand has thrived within Sephora for a decade and makes the retailer’s No. 1 mascara, and Ilia founder Sasha Plavsic helped to architect the industry-leading "Clean at Sephora" program.  “Going into Sephora was really a game changer [for Ilia],” Plavsic told Glossy. “That's when the business really took off.”  But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. “You have one shot, more or less, to prove that you can do what they need you to do,” Plavsic told Glossy. “If they're investing in you and giving up space for you to use, you do have to perform. … You have to be ready for the opportunity.”  Plavsic launched Ilia in 2011 in direct-to-consumer e-commerce and small beauty boutiques. In 2016, the brand entered Sephora and quickly became the "guinea pig" for Sephora’s industry-changing Clean at Sephora assortment, Plavsic told Glossy. In 2022, Ilia was acquired by Famille C, the Courtin-Clarins family holding company and owner of the Clarins brand. Between launch and today, Ilia has also diversified its retailer presence to include Amazon, Credo, Mecca, Revolve, Nordstrom and, as of 2025, Ulta Beauty, which Plavsic sees as a separate customer from Sephora.  Cumulatively, Plavsic and her team have successfully navigated the challenges of a diversified retail presence and an expanding clean beauty landscape, all while maintaining their stronghold within Sephora. She sat down with Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack to share Clean at Sephora’s origin story, advice for brands looking to make it in Sephora and her perspective on diversified retail channels. “Growth can be painful, and I think, with [Sephora], it can be the most painful because they can probably grow you faster than anybody out there,” Plavsic said. “That is an opportunity that you cannot pass up.” 

What does it take to win Allure’s Best of Beauty awards? In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Allure editor-in-chief Jessica Cruel sits down with host Lexy Lebsack to unpack the ins and outs of its prestigious beauty awards program, including how beauty and wellness brands can better appeal to her team of editors.  Launched in 1996, five years after the first issue of Allure hit newsstands, the annual Best of Beauty awards anoints the best products across dozens of categories with its coveted Best of Beauty seal.  “The seal can be licensed, so you can put it on your packaging, you can put it on your social media, you can put it in ads, and that's because we know from [our] research that the seal helps that product move,” Cruel told Glossy. “We know that when people see that seal, [the winning product] is more likely to be purchased than the thing that's sitting right next to it, so that seal has power.”  The awards are a hallmark franchise for the Condé Nast publication and a powerful tool for the brands that win. The seal is a recognizable differentiator in the market, which is why Allure’s team tests products all year in anticipation of the big reveal.  The 2026 award winners will be announced today, September 17. To celebrate, Glossy tapped Cruel to talk through the nuances of making it through the first rounds, how the process works and how winners are selected. Cruel also shares candid advice for brands that want to stand out to her editors year-round, including insights around timelines, the categories and topics performing well today, what’s interesting to her, and what she wishes more brands and publicists understood about working with Allure. 

Helmed for the past six years by veteran beauty executive Mary van Praag, 25-year-old mass beauty mainstay Milani Cosmetics is in the midst of meteoric growth. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, van Praag sits down with host Lexy Lebsack to discuss Milani’s growth engine, including the tactics and retail partnerships she’s betting on to reach $500 million in annual sales in the next three years.

CPG disruptors have entered just about every legacy category over the past few years in hopes of capturing bored consumers looking for more interesting everyday products.  We’ve seen this play out across dandruff shampoo, toothpaste and mouth wash, supplements, sunscreen, and, most recently, the allergy aisle.  “We did a ton of consumer work up front, probably too much, pulling research reports, data and our own survey of 600 consumers, and what we realized was that there is a huge experience and efficacy gap,” Loren Lucree, the CEO and founder of 9-month-old allergy-care brand Wizard Wellness, told Glossy. “[We found that] only 7% were loyal to their current solutions, which is bananas. … [The] lesson is nobody's writing love letters to Flonase or Zyrtec.”  Lucree is a beauty industry veteran formulator and executive. His CV includes Unilever and Estée Lauder brands. “One morning I woke up and told my poor husband, ‘I have to do this,' … because somebody else will do it if I don't,” Lucree said. “[I thought], ‘I have this amazing beauty network around me, and now's the time’.” Lucree secured $7 million in funding from True Beauty Ventures, G9 Ventures, Able Partners and The Venture Collective to launch Wizard Wellness via a DTC model in January. The brand is built on a beauty industry playbook, including cleaner ingredients, clear positioning, clinical testing, a dynamic OOH advertising funnel and social-first marketing. Now, just nine months post-launch, Wizard Wellness has entered CVS, Walmart and, as of Monday, Target stores.  Glossy West Coast correspondent Lexy Lebsack sat down with Lucree to learn firsthand how he took on allergy incumbents and what it’ll take to become a leader in the space.

There’s an interesting tension happening in the beauty industry today around makeup.  Last year, consumer beauty publications and industry executives heralded 2026 as the year bold, maximalist makeup would return. Top publications predicted a shift away from the persistent "clean girl aesthetic" that entered the zeitgeist around 2021 toward bolder, brighter makeup. Meanwhile, executives from Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Revlon told Glossy they were betting big on a return to more expressive makeup in 2026. But that hasn’t happened at scale – at least not yet. Instead, sales at conglomerates that report earnings, like L’Oréal Group and E.l.f. Beauty, tell us that top-selling categories in 2026 remain the mainstays of "no-makeup makeup," like lip gloss, balm and liner; complexion products, like tinted sunscreen, blush, bronzer, and setting spray; and mascara.  For today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack sat down with veteran celebrity makeup artist Jamie Greenberg to unpack exactly where makeup is headed next.  Greenberg has been a working makeup artist for more than 20 years. Her client list today includes Rashida Jones, Kaley Cuoco, Chelsea Handler, Tracee Ellis Ross and Kristen Stewart, among others.  Greenberg is also the founder of the DTC makeup line Jamie Makeup, known best for its blush/highlighter hybrid product called Blighlighter and spray makeup remover named B.F.M.R. Mist. She’s also a prolific social media creator with more than 700,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, and she runs a monthly subscription beauty box called SwagBag that features her latest favorite products from a wide array of brands. Press play now for a candid conversation on where makeup is headed, including the trends and signals Greenberg is paying attention to now.

Midi Health is betting on topical skin care and body care as it diversifies its telehealth offerings to capture more women. “Women in midlife go through amazing changes with their hormones, … [and] our skin care needs actually change over time with our hormone evolution,” Dr. Kathleen Jordan, MD, chief medical officer of Midi Health, told Glossy. “I usually talk about [this care expansion] as ‘hormone informed skin care’ because that's really what the market's been lacking.”  That is, skin care that treats a variety of skin concerns that can develop in mid-life such as dryness, loss of collagen, hyperpigmentation, and acne.  “We saw patients for many years without having [skin-care] products, but what we saw was them struggling to get good products that were actually designed for them,” Dr. Jordan said. “We now see tens of thousands of women every week, and we actually hear from them. We hear their questions. We understand where they're struggling to get products that actually are meaningful [for their skin concerns], and then in response, we can develop products that actually help them.”  For Midi Health, this means offering prescription and OTC products with ingredients like estrogen, retinol, hydroquinone and tretinoin. In June, Midi expanded its skin-care selection to include topical copper peptides. According to Dr. Jordan, this is just the start for the company. Midi Health launched in 2021 and currently treats around 25,000 women per week. Oftentimes, this includes care for issues dismissed by the traditional medical industry, like fatigue, weight gain, mood and sleep disturbance, which can be treated with things like hormone replacement therapies or other OTC and prescription interventions.  Midi Health is privately held by its founders plus investors like Connie Britton, Brandi Chastain, Tory Burch, Amy Schumer, and Meghan Markle, as well as private equity firms like Google Ventures and Emerson Collective, plus a laundry list of tech execs including Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta, and Tekedra Mawakana, the co-CEO of Waymo. Midi Health was valued at $1 billion following a $100 million series D funding round in February.  Glossy West Coast correspondent Lexy Lebsack sat down with Dr. Jordan to discuss Midi Health’s skin- and body-care aspirations, the category’s role in telehealth in the future, and how Midi Health hopes to earn more market share. 

Behind every great in-person beauty or wellness event is an invisible team of insiders that has engineered the gathering for maximum impact.  Bilal Kaiser, the founder and principal of Agency Guacamole, is one of those insiders. Kaiser and his team have produced events for leading retailers and brands like Olive Young, NYX, Therabody, Matrix, Redken, Ole Henriksen, Evereden and many more.  Kaiser is a former L’Oréal Group executive and marketing instructor at UCLA and NYC’s General Assembly. He launched Agency Guacamole in 2016, a boutique communications agency based in Los Angeles and New York City that provides experiential, media communications, and influencer marketing services to the beauty and lifestyle industries.  For today’s episode, host Lexy Lebsack challenged Kaiser to break down the ins and outs of eventing in 2026. More specifically, he was asked to break down the nuances behind a successful event made for different age groups, including Gen Alpha, Gen Z, millennials and Gen X, and industry demographics, like press, influencers and consumers. Kaiser also fielded questions about event budgets, timelines, the future of eventing, and the optics to consider when planning luxury events or brand trips.

Have you ever wondered how awards show beauty partnerships come together to create big, splashy red carpet moments that seem to reverberate across social media for weeks or months? Award season partnerships are big business for everyone involved: the celebrity, who may be fulfilling, or courting, a spokesperson deal; beauty and lifestyle brands, which are often promoting a new product or simply seeking brand awareness; and professional artists, who are oftentimes the glue that holds it all together. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack interviews beauty industry agents Marissa Alfe and Lauren FitzGerald. The duo opened their full-service Los Angeles talent agency, Prtnrs Mgnt, in 2020. They currently represent 18 standout hair, makeup and nail artists including Patrick Ta, Ariel Tejada and Laura Polko. Together, their artists work with stars like Gigi Hadid, Rosalia, Kylie Jenner, Olivia Munn and Alix Earle, while Alfe and FitzGerald have brokered deals for their clients with brands like La Mer, Chanel, Morphe and Redken. Alfe and FitzGerald are longtime friends and former colleagues at competing agency Cloutier Remix Agency. Alfe’s CV also includes Burberry and founder of Greyscale Management, while FitzGerald has held roles at InStyler and Digital Brand Products, the licensing and products division to Digital Brand Architects.

Teen boys have become an increasingly important consumer demographic over the past few years thanks, primarily, to their insatiable appetite for fragrance.  This includes the accumulation of "fragrance wardrobes," where users rotate their fragrances daily based on mood and occasion, often selecting from a robust collection of both designer and dupe scents. Teen boys also care about their fragrance atomizers and save for niche fragrances that signal access and knowledge about the category. Much of this stems from TikTok or Reddit, where "fragheads" — short for "fragrance heads" — follow the latest trends and industry news.  “It is very much a collector mentality,” said Glossy senior editor Emily Jensen. “There are actually a lot of parallels with how [teen boys] are discovering and purchasing [fragrances today] with the ‘sneakerhead’ community that was big in the 2010s.” But teens are also notoriously fickle, changing their minds with such vigor that it can be considered a curse to attract too much focus from young people. For example, attention from teens and tweens crushed the once skin-care darling Drunk Elephant after young shoppers claimed the brand as their own, then quickly moved on, causing quarterly sales to fall by as much as 65%.  Teen boys today straddle two generations: Gen Alpha boys 16 and younger and Gen Z boys 17 and older. Together, they’ve been dubbed Gen Zalpha.  So how do brands and retailers reach Gen Zalpha boys hungry for the latest fragrance to add to their wardrobes?  In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, we unpack the latest strategy shift from Ulta Beauty reported by Glossy’s international fashion reporter Zofia Zwieglinska. Launching this week, the retailer is partnering with fragrance brand Snif to attract young male fragrance enthusiasts with its first dedicated masstige men’s fragrance brand, Notewrks. Through this, the brand and retailer hope to target the gap between mass and prestige fragrance.  Host Lexy Lebsack is joined by Jensen and Zwieglinska to unpack the rise of the Gen Zalpha fraghead and how Ulta Beauty is hoping to woo them. 

As competition in the beauty industry heats up, leaders are looking for new ways to stand out.  “I've worked in beauty for 24 years now, and I don't think I've ever seen it more competitive than it is right now,” Amy Liu, CEO and founder of Tower28, told Glossy. “Maybe in five more years, I'll say that again. Who knows, right? But it feels like we are at a real peak right now, and a bubble of sorts.”  In a lot of ways, the industry is moving away from speaking at consumers and leaning into a two-way dialogue — but what does that look like for out-of-home advertising?  In June, Tower28 gave the industry one of its best examples: The company debuted a custom-made NYC billboard with a large button that spritzed passersby with its hero SOS Daily Skin Rescue Spray. The billboard was up for two weeks in June, located on Canal Street in SoHo. Developed with outdoor advertising agency MilkMoney, the billboard was a first-of-its-kind endeavor. “[The billboard] was very bespoke — and, actually, there were a lot of problems that ensued, which is normal anytime you do something that has never been done before,” Liu said.  This included space limitations, technical challenges in the actual mister and storage of the product, and a liability issue that caused a last-minute location change. Luckily, Tower28 got lucky: The weather was hot and sticky – making a refreshing face mist especially alluring — and the city was busy and buzzing from its Knicks Championship win.  The primary ingredient in Tower28’s SOS Daily Skin Rescue Spray is hypochlorous acid, an increasingly popular ingredient in the skin-care space because it’s safe and gentle, yet helps prevent acne, especially after sweating or working out. It's also great for conditions like eczema because it helps to reduce inflammation.  Tower28’s SOS spray is a darling in the category and has been a hero for the brand since it launched in 2020. The brand sells various sizes of the popular mist, including a mini for $12, a 4-ounce bottle for $28 and a refill jug for $68.  Overall, Liu estimates that Tower28 spent around $200,000 on the billboard investment — $150,000 to MilkMoney and another $50,000 on promotion, staffing and ancillary campaign. The billboard garnered industry attention and spritzed more than 188,000 New Yorkers during the two-week run.  Liu sat down with Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack to unpack the experience and investment, and discuss — knowing what she knows now — if she would do it again. 

The beauty industry disruptor that brought clean beauty into the mainstream is back with a shiny new brand concept.  Gregg Renfrew, the entrepreneur behind Beautycounter and Counter, is launching her third beauty brand on September 1 in an effort to reach consumers ages 14 to 30.   The brand is called Beecee and, in a lot of ways, is an iteration of now-defunct Beautycounter. The line will launch direct-to-consumer with lip gloss, skin balm and face mist at premium price points. The company is currently in the midst of a community meet-up tour — hosting events with Renfrew in Nashville, New York, Chicago and Charleston, among other cities — to recruit and mobilize excited young brand advocates who can earn a commission on sales.  But do young people care about clean beauty? “The answer is unequivocally yes,” Renfrew told Glossy. “I've actually been really surprised by how many of the young women with whom we've been interacting have said that this really matters to them.”  In 2013, Renfrew launched Beautycounter, a first-of-its-kind beauty business built off ingredient transparency, independent sellers and ‘boots on the ground' industry advocacy in Washington, D.C. The concept struck a nerve and forever shifted the beauty industry toward better transparency.  But Renfrew was very early to the "clean beauty" wave — something that, today, is very much table stakes for new brands. This has presented its own challenges for Renfrew’s ongoing success.  “It's both a blessing and a curse to be the leader and the disruptor in any industry at any moment in time,” she said. “In some ways, I have the luxury now of coming back in through Counter and Beecee to see all the things I did well and all the things I didn't do well, of which there were many, and iterate on those models to do them better than I did before.” Beautycounter officially shuttered in 2024, giving Renfrew the opportunity to buy back her IP from the VC firm The Carlyle Group. Renfrew then parlayed her bestselling formulas and clean beauty mission into Counter, her brand launched DTC in 2025 to serve women 35 and older.  Glossy Beauty podcast host Lexy Lebsack sat down with Renfrew to discuss Beecee, the future of clean beauty, how to best reach Gen Z and why the best days of specialty beauty retail are behind us. 

To discuss what makes a successful retail pop-up, Glossy is joined by three powerhouse executives in today’s roundtable episode: Jacquelin Barrett, Patrick Ta Beauty svp of marketing; Matte Projects president Neda Whitney; and Michelle Lee, chief brand officer at Front Row Group, fractional CMO of Landing International and former editor-in-chief of Allure magazine. 

It’s tough to compete with Supergoop, the sunscreen startup that entered the market in 2006 and quickly became the industry darling before selling to private equity firm Blackstone in 2021. In many ways, the company created the modern sunscreen playbook by marketing it as skin care, not sun care.  “[Supergoop started] with the mission of really transforming the SPF category, so that people wouldn't think of it as a seasonal thing,” Lauren Weinberg, chief marketing officer of Supergoop, told Glossy. “The way the brand did that was really by coming out with formulas that debunked, I would say, all the things that people didn't like about sunscreen. So, it wasn't sticky, it wasn't greasy, it didn't have an odor, and it could go as a primer underneath your makeup.”  Today, Supergoop sells one unit of its cult-favorite Unseen Sunscreen every 16 seconds, but staying on top requires constant evolution, Weinberg told Glossy. For Supergoop, this has included evolving the company’s channel mix this year to better reach new and existing consumers.  “Consumers don't really think about where they see and hear about brands,” Weinberg said. “One of the things I noticed when I came [into this role in February 2026] is that the way we were storytelling as a brand, or how we were communicating with consumers, was not really cohesive across all of our channels. So we've really been trying to focus on doing cohesive storytelling.”  Small shifts this year have helped to grow sales through a more diversified channel mix. For example, Weinberg’s team is focused on promoting lesser-known SKUs on evolving platforms, such as TikTokShop, while launching its best-sellers across new channels, including Target in February and Amazon Premium starting in May.  Weinberg joined Supergoop at the top of the year after more than two decades in marketing. Her CV includes six years at Yahoo, ending her tenure as VP of marketing, plus another six years at Square, where she was the global chief marketing officer. She held the role of CMO at Peloton before joining the Supergoop team five months ago.  Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack sat down with Weinberg to discuss everything mentioned above, plus the challenges of tackling Amazon in-house through a Premium storefront and entering mass retail at a prestige price point, and the power of emerging social channels and social commerce.  The following conversation was recorded in front of a live audience at Glossy’s annual E-Commerce Summit in Miami on June 1. 

Cindy Gustafson has checked off a laundry list of accomplishments during her first 18 months as CEO of Nutrafol.  This includes an app launch designed to improve retention and a product release tailored to reach one of its smallest customer demographics in men over 50. These rollouts happened while she led the team toward double-digit growth during 2025, her first full year as CEO, on a path to soon reach $1 billion in annual sales.  “You need a real commitment to delivering on something someone actually needs [in order to win this category],” Gustafson told host Lexy Lebsack. “We actually have quite a small portfolio of products, [unlike our competitor] brands that have hundreds and hundreds of SKUs. We are not that kind of a brand. We are not that kind of a business.” Instead, Gustafson has stayed hyper-focused on delivering on its main promise of improved hair growth. “We have been so fixated on really delivering against what a customer needs and what a customer is looking for, and staying very, very grounded in that,” she said.  Gustafson is a veteran exec whose CV includes Weight Watchers, Bark, Mindshare and Unilever. She spent 18 months as chief marketing officer of Nutrafol before taking over the CEO role from Nutrafol’s co-founder Giorgos Tsetis after its Unilever acquisition. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Gustafson unpacks her secret sauce for growth, how the supplement consumer has evolved and much more.  

How are beauty and wellness business leaders actually using AI today?  That was the question posed to three longtime industry executives on stage during Glossy’s annual E-Commerce Summit in Miami Beach earlier this month — and the answers may surprise you.  For example, Jenna Manula Linares, vp of digital marketing and TikTok Shop at Tarte Cosmetics, has recently added 15-minute team check-ins at the end of each weekly meeting that require staffers to share how they used AI that week and whether or not it was successful.  “We're creating a culture of experimentation,” she said. “So, what I challenge my teams to do each week is to use AI in a new or different way.” The team then tracks these challenges and results using Tarte’s internal AI program.  Meanwhile, David Baker, chief revenue officer of the skin-care brand Beekman 1802, has found success in identifying early AI adopters within the brand and empowering them to learn new skills and own tentpole projects. “First and foremost, it's finding the people who have an interest in it, and giving them the room and space to play,” he said.  Baker is teaching his team to think of AI as a colleague that works while the rest of the team is off the clock. “Finding and sourcing creators gets really hard, so we've built an agentic staffer. Her name is Zoe, and Zoe is designed to source [creators] and draft personalized outreach, so that we can find people who fit our ethos and fit our brand voice really, really well at scale, while we sleep,” he said.  “AI has permeated every team and workflow we have at Tarte,” Linares said. “I'm constantly telling my team, if it takes you longer than 15 minutes to do something, there's a faster way, and you should learn and try to figure it out via AI.” Then there is Ulta Beauty, which rolled out one of the largest AI partnerships within beauty retail last month, with Google Gemini. The team has spent the past few weeks learning how its consumers actually use the new AI-powered features, which include an on-site and in-app chatbot.  “We continue to find new data sets that we need to put into [the chatbot’s knowledge base, like] store locations, store hours — a lot of those things where customers are just asking generic questions,” said Josh Friedman, svp of digital and e-commerce at Ulta Beauty. “They're asking lots of questions about the brand, and we're seeing some really good use cases with our customer care agent, as well.”  In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack takes listeners live on stage with Ulta Beauty’s Josh Friedman, Tarte’s Jenna Manula Linares and Beekman1802’s David Baker to learn about the actual impact of AI today. 

Daniel Landver is the head of UTA's creators product group — a role most people may not even realize exists. While his job keeps him behind the scenes, Landver is behind some of the buzziest brand launches of the past decade. Think: Patrick Starrr's One/Size, Alex Cooper's Unwell (beverages), Mikayla Nogueira's POV Beauty and Alix Earle's recently launched Reale Actives, to name a few. Much has changed in the 10 years since Landver began working in the creator economy. During his conversation with co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner for the Glossy Beauty Podcast, he discusses how the creator-brand landscape has evolved since he first entered the space in 2015, what separates successful founder-creators from those who struggle and why, in an increasingly crowded market, product quality matters more than follower count.

Artificial intelligence is the undisputed main character of 2026, showing up everywhere from the wedding industry to perfume creation. But even while AI’s place in society remains contentious — in the buzzy “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” AI is a bigger antagonist than Miranda Priestly — beauty brands and retailers are rushing to adopt AI into their platforms. That includes two of beauty’s major players, Sephora and Ulta.  In March, Sephora announced an integration of its app within ChatGPT, while Ulta Beauty announced its own artificial intelligence integration via a partnership with Google Gemini just a month later.  On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner are joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss Sephora's and Ulta’s recent investments into AI, and how agentic shopping is poised to evolve in the beauty industry. How exactly AI will shape the consumer pipeline and influencer beauty shopping in the months and years to come remains to be seen. But with Amazon (and its proprietary AI capabilities) on Sephora's and Ulta’s heels as a major beauty retailer, the beauty retailers are diving right in rather than risking getting left behind.  

Over the past three years, L'Oréal Group has been quietly assembling the perfect team, ingredient, product and marketing rollout for its next big skin-care category: longevity.  Helmed by veteran L'Oréal Group executive Vania Lacascade, a doctor of pharmacy and MBA who has spent more than 15 years with the conglomerate, the first longevity skin-care range dropped on May 1 under the Lancôme brand.  Lacascade has worked across brands for L'Oréal Group and served as the chief innovation officer from 2023 to 2025. where she readied the conglomerate for its pivot into longevity. In 2025, she became the global brand president of Lancôme, overseeing the launch.  “One of the most significant projects I had to lead was this ambitious roadmap around longevity for beauty, and now, as the president of Lancôme, I have the opportunity to bring this roadmap to life,” Lacascade told Glossy. “With this launch, [called] Absolue MD, it's really this bridge between laboratory science and women's daily lives.”  The term longevity has become mainstream since the Covid-19 pandemic, as the wellness industry has exploded in popularity. Longevity is defined as living a longer, healthier life. In the health and wellness fields, it’s often measured by a mix of lifespan, or how long one lives, and healthspan, or the quality of that life. How the term applies to beauty is still being decided.  “If we manage to live longer, the first priority is to live better, and what was interesting to me is, ‘How do you translate this shift when it comes to skin? When it comes to beauty?'” she said.  Lacascade told Glossy that she sees anti-aging and longevity products as complementary. For example, anti-aging is corrective: “Correcting the loss of collagen, correcting wrinkles, so those types of skin care are here to treat the symptoms and address very, very specifically different kinds of signs of aging,” she said. Meanwhile, longevity is “treating the root cause of aging,” she said.  To power the company’s vision, L'Oréal’s venture capital fund, BOLD, acquired a minority stake in Swiss biotech company Timeline in 2024. It then leveraged the company’s Mitopure ingredient, which works through cellular repair, to power L'Oréal’s first longevity skin-care launch, called Lancôme’s Absolue MD. The new line dropped with three moisturizers made for different ages. The Anticipate cream is for those under 35 years old, while Intercept is made for those ages 35-55, and Reset was designed for who are 55-plus. Each is $155. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Lacascade walks host Lexy Lebsack through her vision for L'Oréal Group’s continued expansion into longevity, the Lancôme launch that kicked it off, and how the team is leveraging celebrity ambassadors like Demi Moore and Zoe Saldaña to spread the word. 

On Sunday, Amazon wrapped up its fourth-annual Summer Beauty Event. Over two weeks, Amazon tempted shoppers with discounts of up to 50% on everything from makeup to vitamins. Even prior to the sale, the retailer did not seem to have trouble courting the beauty consumer. According to data from e-commerce agency Front Row, Amazon cleared $8 billion in U.S. beauty revenue in the first quarter of 2026. But Amazon wants more than just a place to snag beauty at a discount; it wants to be known as a premium beauty destination. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner are joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss the strategy around the e-commerce giant's beauty sales and assortment, and how it's attempting to position itself as a prestige beauty retailer on par with the likes of Sephora and Ulta Beauty. For Amazon, that means not only upping its brand assortment, which has grown to include everything from K-beauty favorites like Medicube to Puig-owned Charlotte Tilbury in recent months, but also encouraging consumers to use its AI-powered shopping assistants in lieu of in-person sales associates. According to Amazon, 300 million customers used its AI shopping assistant Rufus in 2025. On Wednesday, after the recording of this episode, Amazon announced it would replace the Rufus AI assistant with Alexa for Shopping.

What is PDRN? You've probably seen the four letters on serum bottles, sheet masks and even lip balms — or heard them on TikTok. PDRN stands for polydeoxyribonucleotide and typically refers to a DNA fragment that's often, but not always, derived from salmon sperm and most commonly found in K-Beauty. Of course, on social media, PDRN has an obvious shock value to it, which has led to an onslaught of posts in which lines like, "I just got salmon sperm injected into my face," provide perfect hooks to start videos. In this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner explores what PDRN is, what it purports to do for the skin, how it got so popular and how it is expanding beyond Korean beauty. To explore the topic, Spruch-Feiner speaks with New York City-based dermatologist Dr. David Kim; the former editor-in-chief of Allure magazine and fractional CMO for K-Beauty distributor Landing International, Michelle Lee; and the founder of Rodial, Maria Hatzistefanis.

L’Oréal Paris is betting on “The Devil Wears Prada 2” through an official partnership that spans TV ads, OOH advertising, social campaigns, consumer eventing and product placement in the film. L’Oréal officially announced the partnership in March through a commercial that debuted during the Oscars, which drew more than 17 million viewers this year. “It was a huge, huge success and [created] huge buzz,” Branik said. “We also dropped it on social [media] that night, and we had more than 7 billion impressions in one night.” The commercial starred L’Oréal Paris spokespeople Kendall Jenner and Simone Ashley, set in the movie’s fictional “Runway” magazine offices. Similar commercials were released in the subsequent weeks starring L’Oréal spokesperson Isabella Rossellini and actress Pauline Chalamet, who joined the franchise for the sequel alongside Ashley. “It’s the first time we’re doing something so big,” Branik said. “We have done product integrations before, but this is a whole new level for us.” Branik sat down with podcast host Lexy Lebsack to walk through all of the details of the campaign, ways its success may lead to similar investments for L’Oréal Groupe and best practices for navigating product placement. Read Glossy Beauty's coverage: Exclusive: Swan Beauty CEO on the @acquiredstyle bachelorette party that broke the internet

Indie Lee launched her namesake beauty brand — a pioneer of the "clean" beauty movement — in 2010. Now owned by parent company American Exchange, the brand is embarking on a new chapter: a diffusion line, Indie Lee Botanicals, which launched at Whole Foods in February. The range launched with a tight edit including a cleanser, toning mist, serum and moisturizer, each priced $20-$25. On this week's episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Lee joins co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner to explore why now was the right time to launch a lower-priced line, how she approached maintaining efficacy while cutting costs, and how this diffusion brand will grow and shape her core collection's future. The conversation also dives into how shifting consumer behavior, whether driven by economic pressure or interest in ingredient safety, is reshaping how and where people shop for beauty products. Read Glossy Beauty's coverage: Why ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ is the collaborator fashion and beauty brands have been waiting for The beauty industry welcomes a flood of new peptide products as ‘peptide therapy’ trends online

Michael Malinsky’s 6-year-old brand Wonderskin could have easily become a one-hit wonder.  Wonderskin launched in 2020 with a peel-off lip stain that immediately went viral on TikTok for its metallic blue formula and social media-friendly reveal. Since launch, the brand has sold more than 6 million units of the $22 Wonder Blading Lip Stain Peel-Off Mask, according to Malinsky.  “The unique visual ‘wow factor’ helped us tremendously in capturing attention, but just standing out is a small part [of success],” Malinsky said. “Delivering curiosity, entertainment and ultimately the desire to try a product is what we spent the first two years of the business really honing in on.”  In fact, Wonderskin’s viral success took years to build. “Our virality curve wasn't instant and up into the right; it was a slow-building momentum while we figured out the right messaging, the right visuals, the right branding, the right communications, the right packaging, the right pricing,” he said. “Only when we were very, very confident in the complete package were we more comfortable in activating the bigger partnerships and shouting a little bit more loudly about our product.”  As early adopters of TikTok Shop and live selling, Wonderskin leveraged seller tools to grow an online community and saw a 328% increase in return on ad spend, plus a 182% increase in click-through rate, according to a TikTok case study on the brand.  “The digital entrepreneurs’ anxiety is always there, because whenever something is working well in digital, there's always the concept of the half-life, because at some point, it will be less efficient. At some point, it will be less viral,” Malinsky said. But what happened next could be considered the more novel part of Wonderskin’s rise: The brand successfully launched into several more categories, including eye and complexion; took on $50 million in funding led by Insight Partners; and launched into traditional retail with Sephora.  This growth is partially fueled by Malinsky’s data-first approach to performance marketing, including a test-and-learn philosophy to new product launches. "We are confident and comfortable enough to move away from things that don't work," he said. Wonderskin’s sales revenue grew by 300% in 2023 and 2024, and in 2025, the brand did more than $125 million in revenue, according to Malinksy. Today, Wonderskin sells DTC and through Amazon and TikTok Shop, plus Sephora, Boots, Nordstrom and Revolve.  Malinsky joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss the challenges in turning a viral product into a full-fledged beauty brand, including learnings along the way and advice for fueling the fire behind a viral product. 

As the beauty industry moves past the direct-to-consumer boom of the 2010s, some of its most influential brands are being forced to redefine what success looks like. One of the most closely watched is Glossier, which recently appointed a new CEO, Colin Walsh, who joined from Ouai.  On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss the staple millennial brand — which famously helped pioneer the modern "clean girl" aesthetic — and what its next chapter may hold.  In recent months, the company has undergone several changes. Since Walsh’s appointment, they've included layoffs affecting roughly a third of its workforce, a pullback on physical retail, and a renewed focus on hero products and fragrance, a category now driving significant growth. Headlines about the brand have often forecasted inevitable doom, but this episode explores Glossier’s current moment beyond a foregone conclusion, examining what it takes for a beauty brand to achieve longevity in an increasingly crowded market, the balance between newness and attention paid to hero products, and the challenge of maintaining relevance across generations.

As beauty and wellness industry insiders are well aware, the supplement space has exploded in size and scope over the past decade.  Stiff competition has driven new ways for brands, retailers and adjacent tech companies to stand out, from third-party certification to award programs, and more recently, the advent of AI-powered wellness chatbots. Last year, Thorne became a first-mover with the launch of Taia, a first-of-its-kind generative AI advisor that lives on Thorne’s homepage. “In the first six months, [Taia has fielded] over 200,000 messages and more than 350,000 product and lifestyle recommendations,” said Nathan Price, PhD., chief science officer of Thorne. “We get about 8% higher average order value for those who use Taia versus those who just visit Thorne’s [website].”  Thorne is a supplement category leader launched in 1984 and acquired by L Catterton equity group in 2023 for approximately $680 million. The brand has more than 300 SKUs but no hero product, which is one reason Taia exists. “My primary thesis is that the No. 1 thing we can do to help Thorne as a company is to help the Thorne customer,” Dr. Price said. “If Taia and personalization can meaningfully make it so that the person gets the health outcome they were looking for, we think [Taia is] going to have a very big ROI.”  Dr. Price oversaw the creation of Taia, which is trained on Thorne’s internal knowledge database, powered by a team of researchers and doctors, and AI foundational knowledge of health and wellness. For example, Taia can provide insights into common queries around things like gut health, itchy skin or exhaustion. It then provides personalized supplement recommendations, and lifestyle and nutrition tips, and helps users locate informational blog posts or product information on Thorne’s site.  While the practical uses of Taia are somewhat obvious, Dr. Price is also a thought leader on the future of AI-powered health and wellness. He believes that every wellness brand should begin investing now or be left in the dust in the next two years.  “It's like deciding not to have a website and be plugged into the Internet when that started becoming a thing in the late 90s,” Dr. Price told Glossy. “It’s absolutely table stakes [because] this is how most people are getting information, and in the future, it's going to radically [increase].”  Dr. Price’s career sits at the forefront of where longevity and healthspan research intersects with evolving technologies like AI and AI companions.  He is the author of the 2023 bestselling book “The Age of Scientific Wellness,” has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a professor and co-director of the Center for Human Healthspan at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, a California-based research institute focused solely on aging. He’s also been the CSO at Thorne for more than four years. In today’s episode, Dr. Price sat down with host Lexy Lebsack to break down the strategy, implementation and future of generative wellness chatbots like Taia, as well as big picture thoughts on the future of AI and wellness, and how brands must future-proof their businesses in the fast-moving AI revolution.

On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner sits down with Kim van Haaster, founder of Bloomeffects, to discuss the brand’s seven-year journey to Ulta Beauty. Bloomeffects officially launched at the retailer in February, but the journey was years in the making — and included multiple rejections, a brand redesign and, perhaps most compellingly, a social post that transparently documented the whole process, including those rejections. On this episode, van Haaster candidly shares how Bloomeffects reworked its packaging and assortment to turn Ulta's no into a yes, what the brand changed to get into retail (including lowering some prices) and why Ulta was so worth fighting for for Bloomeffects.

Oura Health, the Finnish wearables company that has sold more than 5 million health tracker rings, is betting on women’s health with the launch of its first-ever proprietary large language model designed specifically for women.  “We know historically that women have been underrepresented when it comes to a lot of [medical and pharmaceutical] research,” Tanvi Jayaraman, MD, clinical lead of health AI at Oura, told Glossy. “We want to change that narrative when it comes to women's health.” LLMs are the brains behind AI chatbots, including Oura’s in-app Advisor chat where users can ask general wellness questions, specifics about their personal health data or in-depth medical questions.  “Women have been searching for answers [about our health and bodies on the internet] for just as long as the research has been done,” she said. “The answers that [women are] looking for are really disparate and scattered. They're on a niche Reddit forum, or they're kind of word-of-mouth, so a lot of [what we learn online is] hypothesis-driven, data-gathering one-offs.” Starting last year, Dr. Jayaraman’s team of board-certified clinicians began “training” Oura’s new LLM with only the best data and studies available. This is juxtaposed against many other LLMs, which are trained on the internet at large, which can result in hearsay and causality connections being learned as fact, Dr. Jayaraman said.   “[When we’re able to] pick and choose the right training data, the right sources, the right guidelines for women's health, then you can start to push away some of that noise [from the internet],” she said. “Of course, we have a long way to go when it comes to the actual research, but you have to start somewhere.”  Dr. Jayaraman represents a new type of physician who bridges medicine, artificial intelligence and product strategy.  After medical school at Stanford, she worked on AI strategy projects at Bain & Company, working for global diagnostics and pharmaceutical companies, then on Apple’s clinical team, where she worked on next-gen digital health tools. She joined Oura last year.  Dr. Jayaraman joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss Oura’s new women-focused LLM, the future of AI-powered wellness chatbots and more.

As influencer marketing evolves beyond one-off paid posts, brands are finding new ways to build relationships that last and go deeper than a hashtag-sponsored post. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by Kimberly Ho, founder and CEO of Evereden, to discuss why her $100 million Gen Alpha–focused skin-care brand is giving equity — not just transactional deals — to three teenage creators. The initiative, called Generation E, launches in tandem with the brand's nationwide Sephora expansion and reflects Ho’s belief that the next phase of brand-building means inviting the next generation inside the company, not just in front of the camera. Though it is not unheard of for brands to give equity to creators — for example, Alix Earle had equity in Poppi when it sold to Pepsi for nearly $2 billion — Evereden may be the first to give ownership to a 14-, 15- and 17-year-old. The discussion explores why Evereden chose to give these three creators equity, even though, as Ho said, "We can fully afford a broad paid influencer program." Ho also shares how the young girls will be brought inside the brand and how this model reflects what Gen Alpha wants from the brands it chooses to endorse.

There’s a new chapter in President Donald Trump's ongoing tariff rollercoaster.   In April of 2025, President Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariff plan, which stacked new tariffs onto existing duties to raise overall import taxes as high as 145% for certain countries. The “Liberation Day” announcement left the beauty, fashion and wellness industries struggling to properly plan for 2025 and beyond.  These tariffs have been a major source of revenue for the Federal government. In January, the U.S. collected more than $30 billion in duties, more than double the amount generated in January of 2025.  Last week, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down these tariffs on the grounds that they were ordered under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The SCOTUS ruling doesn’t say that Trump cannot enact tariffs, just that IEEPA doesn't explicitly give the president that power.  This rollback has caused ripples throughout our focus industries, with brand leaders wondering what happens next and whether businesses can expect refunds on the tariffs struck down by SCOTUS. On Tuesday, House Democrats announced plans to unveil a bill on March 2 outlining how businesses can recoup these illegal tariffs. The Senate Committee on Finance estimates that the government collected about $175 billion in tariffs under IEEPA since April 2025.  Immediately after the SCOTUS ruling, President Trump signed an executive order imposing a blanket 10% percent tariff on imported goods. On Saturday, he said he would raise it to 15%, but as of Wednesday, at the time this podcast was recorded, U.S. Custom and Border Protection had replaced Trump’s IEEPA tariffs with a 10% global import charge. It’s unclear if it will be changed to 15% soon.  On Tuesday, during the State of the Union address, President Trump called the SCOTUS ruling “unfortunate” and said that the “type of money we’re taking in is saving our country.” He said the U.S. would soon have to “make a new deal that could be far worse” for companies and countries as the administration is “testing alternative legal statutes” which are “a little more complex but probably a little bit better” than IEEPA. He added that “congressional action would not be necessary” to reinstate similar tariffs.  In the meantime, brands have been left to navigate a quickly changing landscape. In today’s episode, Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack is joined by senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi and senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to unpack the latest tariff news and share how brands are responding. Both Parisi and Jensen covered the tariff rollback earlier this week for Glossy’s beauty and fashion verticals. 

On this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by Catherine D’Aragon, CEO of First Aid Beauty, to discuss the brand’s recent rebrand — its first in its near-20-year lifespan — and its decision to partner with Team USA ahead of the Winter Olympics. The conversation comes at a time when beauty brands are increasingly showing up at the Olympics — from athlete partnerships and product seeding (First Aid gifted all Team USA members) to behind-the-scenes content and performance-focused skin care. Brands including Fenty Beauty, L'Oréal Paris and Glossier have previously activated around the Olympics, as has First Aid Beauty's parent company, Procter & Gamble. Procter & Gamble also owns Gillette Venus, which is sponsoring U.S. Figure Skating athletes Alysa Liu,  Isabeau Levito, and Starr Andrews. The discussion also explores why beauty brands are increasingly turning to athletes, how First Aid Beauty is positioning itself around simplicity and skin "support" in a crowded skin-care market, and how the brand plans to translate a global sporting moment into long-term relevance.

Injectable peptide therapy, a controversial wellness trend that caught fire online in 2025, shows no signs of slowing down in 2026 despite an overwhelming lack of safety data. Peptides, especially “research peptides” like BPC-157 and TB-500, have been hailed by famous podcasters, biohackers, and longevity gurus as a miracle cure for just about anything that ails you, from torn ligaments and gut issues to curbing wrinkles and dull skin. There are several well-studied, FDA-approved peptides available today, such as insulin and GLP-1s like Ozempic and Wegovy, but that’s just a sliver of the peptide pie. There are thousands more with glowing online reviews, but scant scientific data, that can be procured online or through longevity clinics. Mixes of various peptides, called “peptide stacks,” often come with clever names like the ‘'wolverine stack’ or ‘glow protocol’, while others have earned names like ‘Barbie peptide’ for their ability to tan the skin without the sun. These popular stacks are not FDA-approved, so they’re distributed online as 'research peptides' that are meant for in-lab research, not human use — a workaround for their gray market status. To find out more, host Lexy Lebsack sat down with two experts on the topic. First up was NYT’s David Dodge (8:42), who walked us through the rise of peptide therapy online. He published an article for NYT in November titled “The internet loves peptide therapy. Is it really a miracle cure?” Lebsack also interviews McGill’s Jonathan Jarry (29:35), who wrote an article in late 2023 — well ahead of a rush of online articles — called “The human lab rats injecting themselves with peptides.” Jarry walks us through the hard science, and lack thereof, of many popular stacks, ahead.

With the new year, changes are afoot at TikTok. On January 22, the U.S. version of the app sold for approximately $14 billion to an investor group that includes Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and investment firm MGX. It's yet to be seen how these changes will impact TikTok Shop, which has become an e-commerce behemoth. In December 2025, Wired reported that the social commerce platform had grown to rival eBay in scale, estimating that it sold $19 billion worth of products globally between July and September of last year. Even before these most recent changes, as TikTok Shop has matured, brands have been rethinking how they work with creators. In this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosted by Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner, Glossy reporter Zofia Zwieglinska unpacks her recent story exploring what’s currently driving sales on TikTok Shop — from replicable video formats to product bundles to AI — and how those shifts are redefining influencer marketing.

Over the last week, the beauty industry has seen the closure of three major makeup brands: CoverFX and Mally Beauty are shuttering, while Pat McGrath Labs, once valued at $1 billion, is headed to bankruptcy. This comes on the heels of unexpected 2025 closures that included Ami Colé, Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty, REN Clean Skincare, Apostrophe telehealth skincare and Gwyneth Paltrow’s mass line Good.clean.goop. At the helm of two of these brands, CoverFX and Mally Beauty, is AS Beauty CEO Joey Shamah, the founder and former CEO of E.l.f. Cosmetics. “We’ve been coined as a purchaser of distressed assets [at AS Beauty], but we’re not only buying [brands in] distress,” Shamah told Glossy. “We look at them in three buckets. Distressed or challenged is definitely one of them, a second one is divestitures, … and then the third way is similar, but different, where private equity funds have invested in a company, and their funds are sunsetting, so they’re looking to exit.” AS Beauty was founded in 2019 by Shamah and three co-founders. It is the parent company of CoverFX and Mally Beauty, as well as Laura Geller, Julep and Bliss. While the latter two were sunset this past week, Laura Geller has grown more than 10x to over $300 million in sales, Julep has been the No. 1 selling eyeshadow brand on Amazon for several consecutive years, and Bliss has evolved into a multi-category lifestyle brand, according to AS Beauty. In total, AS Beauty’s annual revenue is around $500 million, Shamah told Glossy. Shamah is also the founder and operator of Fit for Life, a fitness equipment licensing company behind brands like GAIAM, New Balance and Fila. AS Beauty purchased Mally Beauty and CoverFX in 2021 and 2022 from investment firms Beauty Visions and L Catterton Partners, respectively. In today’s episode, Shamah joins the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss the decision to shutter CoverFX and Mally Beauty — at least for now, we learned — and the economic pressure that led to the decision. He also discussed the challenges of running an underperforming brand, the warning signs that a brand is in distress, and the way an operator comes to the decision to sell, shutter or file bankruptcy.

Ulta Beauty is doubling down on the wellness category. “We’ve been on the journey with wellness since 2021 when we launched the wellness shop at Ulta Beauty, and we’ve learned so much about the category,” Laura Beres, vp of wellness at Ulta Beauty, told Glossy. “Wellness continues to grow in the market, and importantly, our guests just continue to demand more of it. … This is really an evolution of the Wellness Shop.” Launching next week, the retailer is rolling out a pilot program called “Wellness by Ulta Beauty,” a shop-in-shop boutique concept piloted in four U.S. stores. It will include an education-focused wall, gondolas, end caps and a sampling table, all staffed by specially trained wellness advisors. “This is much larger [than our existing Wellness Shop]: It’ll be about 475 square feet in the store, which is a significant experience [for Ulta]. And it will have some space for guests to be able to really explore and navigate in a way that gives them that sense of calm and peace throughout the store,” Beres said. The boutiques will be located in Columbus, Ohio; Short Pump, Virginia; Peabody, Massachusetts; and Naperville, Illinois. Beres joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss the launch, how brands can participate, and what’s coming next for Ulta Beauty’s continued wellness expansion. Listen in now, then learn more in Glossy’s latest Ulta Strategies story on the launch.

After a few sleepy years, beauty M&A had a gangbuster 2025, including three deals worth more than a billion each, leading many insiders to speculate on whether the momentum can continue in 2026. “We were excited to see what we saw last year; M&A had become so dormant for a while, we were getting a little concerned,” said Kimber Maderazzo, professor of marketing at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School and former Proactiv and L’Oréal Group executive. “But I think we’ll see something different [this year].” In 2025, E.l.f. Beauty purchased Hailey Bieber’s Rhode for $1 billion in May. Then in June, men’s care brand Dr. Squatch was acquired by Unilever for $1.5 billion, and L’Oréal Group bought clinical skin-care brand Medik-8 for approximately $1.1 billion. “When you see big deals like that, it sends a message out to private equity that strategics are looking for big, big brands that will last over time,” Maderazzo said. “And when we look at the history [of beauty M&A], a lot of those brands [acquired in the past] didn’t.” In this week’s episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack sits down with Maderazzo to discuss the new acquisition rulebook, as she sees it, what strategics are looking for today and what we can expect in 2026.  Lebsack also taps Maderazzo to share her “2026 in and out” prediction list and an insider glimpse into the trends and topics most important to the beauty-industry-focused graduate students she teaches today. 

The latest Glossy Beauty Podcast episode features board-certified dermatologist Dr. Marnie Nussbaum and beauty industry veteran Jodi Kaplan — the founder and CEO, respectively, of the Dr. Marnie skin-care brand. Dr. Nussbaum gained popularity while catering to dermatology clients in New York City’s Upper East Side before launching the brand, which was called Lines before rebranding in November. For her part, Kaplan built her industry prowess through roles at brands including Droplette, Dr. Barbara Sturm and Augustinus Bader.  Dermatologist-founded brands continue to resonate with beauty consumers, who are seeking credibility, education and expertise in an oversaturated market. On the podcast, Glossy Pop editor Sara Spruch-Feiner asks Dr. Nussbaum and Kaplan why they chose to lose “Lines,” what a founder’s name on a product line signifies and what’s in store for derm-led skin care in the years to come.

What will 2026 mean for the beauty and wellness industries?  In today’s special episode, hosts Lexy Lebsack, Emily Jensen and Sara Spruch-Feiner share their 2026 industry predictions.  This includes a slowdown of the "no-makeup makeup" aesthetic in favor of bolder color cosmetics trends, the rise of experimental peptide therapy among wellness consumers and an uptick in budget-conscious beauty shoppers. The hosts also made specific predictions, such as an increase in savory scents in fragrance and more clean, value-priced body care in big-box stores. The trio also muses about the bubbles that could burst in 2026, and so much more. 

As 2025 comes to a close, the Glossy Beauty team — Sara Spruch-Feiner, Lexy Lebsack and Emily Jensen — came together on the Glossy Beauty Podcast to reflect on some of the defining themes that shaped the beauty industry this year, and their own reporting. Spruch-Feiner unpacks the continued rise of Gen Alpha as a beauty consumer, the brands emerging to meet that demand and the retailers adapting to deliver for this younger demographic. Jensen examines a challenging year for color cosmetics, where lip care and lip liner emerged as bright spots. And Lebsack points to longevity as a key growth area in wellness, highlighting momentum in categories like fitness trackers and strength-training equipment. She also notes that, in skin care, clinical, results-driven products are igniting consumer interest.  Tune in for a look back at the biggest moments and themes across beauty and wellness in 2025 — and what they could signal for the industry in 2026.

In January, Kecia Steelman became one of the most powerful executives in beauty.  After more than a decade at Ulta Beauty in positions like COO and head of international, she stepped into the president and CEO role with an uphill battle ahead of her.  That’s because sales at Ulta tumbled during the 2020 pandemic, and despite an uptick in 2021, year-over-year sales had been steadily falling for nearly three years. She took over as CEO in January, and by March, she unveiled her Ulta Beauty Unleashed comeback plan — and in just 11 months, her strategy has paid off.  As part of her vision, Steelman expanded Ulta’s e-commerce and product assortment with a new online marketplace, led the acquisition of U.K. specialty beauty retailer SpaceNK, expanded internationally into Mexico and the Middle East, and shepherded a shop-in-shop breakup with Target, all while dramatically improving revenue. Sales at Ulta Beauty have been on a continuous upward swing since Steelman took over as CEO in January. In May, the retailer reported 4.5% net sales growth. This doubled to a 9.3% net sales spike, reported in August, and the company nearly tripled that growth in last month’s earnings report.  Host Lexy Lebsack sat down with Steelman to unpack her first year in charge and look ahead to 2026 (16:50). But today’s episode also celebrates Glossy 50, our annual award list honoring business leaders, changemakers and insiders behind the beauty, wellness and fashion industries. Steelman’s interview is a special Glossy50 preview with the full list publishing next week.  But first, Lebsack is joined by co-host Emily Jensen to break down the news of the week. This includes the novel launch of a new "bedtime fragrance" from the U.K. sleep-solution company This Works. The brand is known for its pillow spray and body oil, which include ingredients such as lavender and magnesium, but this week it expanded into fine fragrance designed to be applied before bed to improve sleep. Lebsack and Jensen also discuss the newest spokesperson for Estée Lauder-owned M.A.C. Cosmetics, pop star Chappell Roan, and the mixed response from her fans online. In addition, they analyze an unexpected collaboration between The Gap and beauty brand Summer Fridays, which includes clothing but not beauty. And finally, the duo discusses the latest moves in the supplement space, including Sephora’s rollback of the category from its selection, and a buzzy new launch from the co-founder and former CEO of Allbirds.

On this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, we're exploring what teens are hoping to receive for the holidays. To do so, Sara Spruch-Feiner speaks to 13-year-old Indy (whose last name is omitted for privacy), based in Los Angeles, who shares her full wishlist with us, as well as the picks of members of her volleyball team. But to get a broader look at the gifting landscape in 2025, Spruch-Feiner also interviewed Anna Andreeva, managing director of footwear, beauty and brands at Piper Sandler. Piper Sandler, a financial services company, is well-known for its biannual teen survey, which, this fall, tapped 11,000 teens, most of whom were 15-18 years old and had an average household income of about $70,000. But first, a look at some of this week’s headlines, including results of this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending, the FDA's decision to withdraw a proposed rule that would have required beauty brands to test talc-based cosmetics for asbestos contamination, and, finally, the news that LVMH Ventures Fund has invested in the niche perfume brand BDK Parfums.

How can shoppers, brands and retailers win Black Friday?  In this week’s special holiday crossover episode, Glossy Beauty Podcast host Lexy Lebsack is joined by Danny Parisi, host of the Glossy Podcast, and Gabi Barkho, host of the Modern Retail podcast, to unpack all things Black Friday.  The three reporters start by sharing their own experiences and plans for navigating Black Friday as a shopper, then unpack some of the buzziest activations and sales strategies today. This includes both discounting and non-discounting strategies, value-focused sales, bundles and collaborations, among other tactics. The trio also walks through emerging and reemerging trends, like catalogs, gift guides and fragrance-focused experiential events.